“One way or another, schools are going to professionalize it,” said Brett Sokolow, president of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, based in Malvern. “They’ll either do it themselves or more and more, they’ll outsource it to firms like ours or to judges.”

Sokolow said he has recommended for years that colleges exclude students from judicial boards in sexual-misconduct cases. Inclusion of students deters some victims from coming forward, he said.